The Ringbearer
by clearing ashes
Summary: The story retold. Frodo is murdered by the Watcher in the Water, and Legolas fearfully takes up the burden of the ring. How will the old tale twist in the hands of a new ringbearer? Chapter 4: Legolas, betrayed and wounded!
1. Chapter 1

**Firstly, bros. It has come to my attention, a few days before this chapter was submitted, that there is a story called 'The Burden', written by writer Nimwen. This story, I was troubled to find, echoed ideals very similar to my own. Please let it be known, whether you choose to believe or not, that I had no notion of this story before I began writing my own, and any uncanny coincidences are purely coincidental. I write of Tolkien's lands and characters not for a chance to gain glory or steal the words of others, but for my own love and for the hope that I can bring others a little joy.**

**This leads into another point I would like to discuss. Every day I try to learn a little more about the fine details of Middle-earth and its inhabitants, but as of yet I am no scholar. THERE WILL BE MISTAKES. Some will be intentional, for the sake of storytelling. Some will be unintentional, so, of course, I always appreciate the advice and critique of others. What I will not appreciate is what are known as 'flames', sharpy degratory reviews usually lacking in intelligent thought. If I ever offend you in my lack/misuse of Tolkienesque knowledge, it's no need to become upset. Simply let me know of the grievance, and I shall do what I can. **

**The Ringbearer**

Chapter I: Fallen Embers

It began with a quicksilver glow etched into stone. It shimmered like stars over water, as the door slid into existence and gave them entrance to Moria, from where naught had been heard for countless years. The musty air bursting from its cracks, smelled of cobwebs and dust.

Gandalf the Grey lowered his strong, old, arms and his sleeves slid down and covered them. He shook his head, laughing softly to himself as he stroked his snowy beard.

"I knew my age was advancing; yes, to that much I will grudgingly admit; but I thought senility lay many years ahead. Gandalf, you old fool! Digging for deep secrets where the seeds of knowledge lay revealed on the topsoil."

Peregrin Took, a halfling, a hobbit, (creatures with tough, hairy, feet and bellies which never fill) stretched and yawned and stared at the glimmering door lamely. He touched the knee of the dozing companion next to him; his mischievous and inseparable cousin, Meriadoc Brandybuck.

"Wake up Merry. It turns out, all Gandalf needed to do is follow the directions. The door said, 'speak friend and enter.' So Mr. Frodo, after hours of Gandalf's crazed mutterings which you luckily slept through, suggested he say the elvish word for friend, seeing as the message was in elvish. I forgot what the word was, exactly. It worked! The door is open now."

Merry groaned and scratched his matted wheat curls, licking his dry lips. He thought sleepily of back home in the shire, where he would be feasting on steaming, butter-yellow, clovercakes and mugs of spiced cider, and would after lay down for a nice nap in his bed.

Gimli, a hearty and sturdy dwarf from the line of Gloin, huffed and shook his heavy head. "What were the elves thinking, thinking up riddles even they themselves couldn't solve!"

Legolas Greenleaf twitched alert like a mountain cat and eyed the dwarf carefully. "Those were easier times...," he said. "In these times we do not expect simplicity in our security, and so do not think to look for it. The elves and the dwarves were friends once..."

Gimli slumped beneath his armor, scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Aye, they were."

Frodo Baggins. Here was an unlucky and brave creature. On his neck hung the doom of the world, and he had already suffered much for it. He stroked the smooth, gold, ring between his fingers, as he did all the time now, without his own notice; and he observed his friends as they talked softly and stirred beneath the shadows of two enormous holly trees. Still against the tree's gnarled feet lay a sheet of dark water, stagnant and buzzing with flies at its trecherous shores. Frodo closed his eyes and wished, as he wished as often as a prayer, that the ring had never come to him.

At the edge of the gathering lingered Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's stoutest companion. He held the bridle of a jittery pony in one hand, and stroked its warm neck in the other. Sam's eyes were heavy and saturnine. A sadness had settled on him since their journey began. A sadness for himself, and for the world, and mostly for his master, who out of the whole world had been given a burden to much for a god to bear.

"Poor old Bill," he cooed to the pony. He fancied he could hear the howls of wolves in the far away dusk. "You cannot go into the mines, and you are probably lucky for it. Get out of here now, and mind you watch out for those 'oribble beasts. ALL of the 'oribble beasts, not just them wolves." He smacked the pony's rumpIt made a sound of disgruntled disbelief, and ambled away.

"Let's go on as soon as we can." Frodo announced, and he tried to sound encouraging, but his voice fell flat. No one grudged him that. Aragorn, son of Arathorn of a enigmatic line of ancient kings, put his hand on Frodo's shoulder and squeezed.

"Good work, Frodo. Unravelling the mysteries of elves and wizards and dwarves." He said, and caught Gandalf's twinkling eyes.

Boromir of Gondor nodded with vague kindness; but his cool, pale, eyes seemed to search Frodo to his marrow.

Gandalf stepped to the entrance, pushed back his tattered hat and peered inside. His sigh was thin, as if from lungs made of old parchment. "There is only blackness inside. I must risk a bit of magic."

His plain wooden staff leapt with silver fireat its thick head. For a second all was illuminated as if Elbereth, painter of the stars, tread before them; soon it cooled to a lambent light, ghost light. Dark, tumbled, shapes appeared inside the cavern, and hanging things. Aragorn slipped in after the wizard, slick as oil, and Gimli, Boromir, and Legolas.

"Wait!" Cried Merry, and he tugged on Pippin's sleeve and pointed to the odious lake. "What's that?"

The lake trembled with ripples, as if from raindrops none of them could see. In the center of the ripples began to froth green-white bubbles, and a rumble like the earth clearing its ancient throat grew under their feet. A tendril grey and hung with slime rose from the lake like a serpent.

Merry yelled and threw Pippin towards the door. "I told ya you should'na been throwin' rocks into it!"

The tendril shot up the bank like an arrow, and as Frodo passed his head through the crack of the door it caught his ankle and yanked him to the bank. He screamed and clawed the mud and felt rotted leaves and twigs and other things pass away under his dragging fingers.

"Mr. Frodo!" Sam yelled, and took a running dive to his master. He floundered in the mud but caught Frodo's hand. Frodo's face was smeared with the dark mud like a mask, and Sam could only see the terrified tempest of his watery eyes.

"Sam! Don't let go of me!"

"Frodo!" Aragorn sprang back outside with sword drawn. He held it like a lance as he charged, and pinned the tendril to the ground right below Frodo's struggling toes. A horrific hiss like water in a volcano thrashed the lake, and a creature boiled to the surface, from which whipped many tendrils, and its round black eyes at the center were furious.

Boromir and Legolas sprang to Aragorn's side. Their swords and daggers they waved clumsily, for the tendrils were faster than arrows and more sure. Legolas dodged the slimy ropes and scrabbled for an opening to the beasts eyes. Boromir lopped off a tendril at the half and nearly tripped over it. He spotted Sam dragging his Master to safety, but above them hovered another tendril, which came down upon them like a falcon. The shuddering rope had Frodo around his neck, and Sam's fingers slipped over it and could not find purchase.

"Aragorn!" Boromir shouted, and lurched towards the two. Aragorn wiped black ichor from his face and followed with a strangled war cry.

Boromir fought to his side, and they chopped and swung with sweat and blood blinding them. The hobbits were barred from their help, and they could not break through.

Legolas ducked under a snaking tendril and landed an arrow deep into the beast's eye! It sizzled and the thing screamed and reared up, and Frodo came with it, whipping upwards with a wet crack. Sam flew a few yards away and Gimli held him safe, crossing his heavy axe over the hobbit's chest. The whites in his eyes showed under his tangled brown brows.

It seemed then that the hope of the Fellowhip, of Middle-Earth, trembled at the edge of a black abyss. Caught in the mouths of halfling, man, dwarf and elf was the name of Frodo, a cry of many streams that met in a river of depthless despair. The holly trees shivered their leaves. The heavens thundered in shock.

Legolas drew a second arrow, panicking now, and shot again. He split the monster's skull, and a bolt chased the first and destroyed its other eye. The creature's scream died into a gurgle like caverns under the earth. Its flailing slowed, its body began a crashing descent back into the thick lake. The warriors struggled out from the water, hacking as they went. They could not see Frodo in the mess. The creature's head was gone, disappeared into the depths. Something heavy fell onto the wet sand.

Sam beat the ground with his fist, and wept. Gimli lowered his eyes slowly and let go of his axe. Sam crumpled forward. "No Mr. Frodo, no, it can't be! No no no no!"

The creature's grasp had not been kind. Frodo was a twisted and bruised thing. His neck had been broken, so that his face stared impossibly at something over his shoulder. Aragorn, with shaking hands, straigtened his body and his clothes on the shore, and closed his staring eyes. Inside Frodo's parted lips there was a poisonous blackness.

A darkness fell over them. Legolas looked towards the sky. It seethed with crows, ravens- crebain, spies and messengers of the dark wizard Saruman! They covered the murky sun. All at once they began a horrible chorus of caws, shrieks and scratchy laughs. Legolas slowly pulled an arrow from his quiver, knocked it and released it into the sky. It vanished amongst the legions. He pulled another arrow, wailed in anguish, and released it towards the winged wicked beasts. They opened to let they arrow through, and closed again like a curtain.

Merry and Pippin crept forward, kneeling at Frodo's side without breathing. Without daring to. They touched Aragorn's sleeve. "Not really Aragorn. He couldn't possibly be? No it's just not possible! Mr. Frodo, wake up! You just spoke to us moments ago, now speak again!"

"Little ones...Dear little ones. Go to dear Sam. Go now." Aragorn said.

Sam could not remember weeping more. He had sealed his eyes shut with grimy tears and was afraid to open them, for a world without his master surpassed every nightmare he had yet had in his short hobbit life, and he could not bear to face it. Merry and Pippin held him and cried against his shaking back.

Aragorn, as he smoothed the hobbit body into a restful place, heard a faint silvery jingle, akin to small coins. He pressed open Frodo's tattered waistcoat between the buttons, and saw a glimmer of mithril. He smiled slowly.

"Dear Frodo. You carried more than the shire's worth on your body and did not even know." In turn his fingers touched upon the hard knot under his vest, which was the ring. Aragorn could not bring himself to draw it out. It seemed as he felt it under his fingertips, he heard a whispery voice through his veins, laughing with triumph.

Gandalf had not moved since Frodo fell to the earth. Crouched in the entrance, he held his spotted hand clutched over his heart. In his face was the colorless horror of a creature who has seen his own doom played out before him. There were tears in his red, tired, eyes.

The Fellowship fell silent and still. The crebain passed in a black cloud, away, towards the west. A rain began to fall, heavy, dark drops that smelled like dampened smoke. It soaked their clothes and the lake swelled, and the fellowship pressed against the rocks in fear of the Watcher. In the battle, one holly tree had fallen to its side. Its roots stuck jagged into the air, hung with moss and crawling with white wormy insects. On the lip of the horizon, the lady of the stars held out her hands and beckoned the moon. It came fearfully, and all they could see through the smoky clouds was a milky, lurking, glow.

Aragorn roused himself when the deep night's chill bit his bones. He would not look at the others, still as statues around him. He passed into Moria, and kindled a fire inside. The orange light drew them slowly, one by one.

However, Legolas stayed still, remembering his arrow and the mad, pierced, eye. He went to Frodo. The hobbit lie on a flat bier of holly branches, which Aragorn had at some time carefully woven together. Legolas touched his moon-white face. Although no more did life burn in this body, the hobbit's skin seemed lit from within. Legolas, too, felt and then saw the mithril beneath his coat. The sun might have been snuffed out, such was the depth of his despair. For that instant he could not remember grass or nodding blooms under his feet, only stone and turgid water. He stroked Frodo's hair and sang:

_Frodo of the under hill,_

_garbed in cloak of white mithril,_

_you passed through snow and grass and field,_

_the doom of the world, on your chest did wield._

_Humblest creature, with farmer's feet,_

_Strongest heart, than in god shall beat;_

_You took the pierce from Morgul laid,_

_You struck in turn, courageous blade._

_A poison to fell a thousand men,_

_you bore to bring your hope to them_

_Ah, Frodo, weary journeying one!_

_Always under shadow you lie, _

_And the world more swiftly passed you by._

_And who will sing of Frodo's ring?_

_Before the courts and before the kings?_

_The trees of the Shire sigh in lament,_

_Ah Frodo, Frodo, wandering one,_

_where all these days, have you spent?_

_What head have we, to shadow now?_

_Under heavy branch and drooping bough?_

_We've heard no tales of rings and eyes,_

_of deathly things and black winged spies._

_Frodo, Frodo, may your feet bring you home,_

_To sun and earth and gold ale foam._

"Doom is upon us then; so even thinks the elf," said Boromir, as he crept from the cavern of Moria, holding a torch.

"Doom has ever been upon us." Legolas said, and he stood to keep the man in his sight. Boromir snuck around him like a wolf.

"I can hear it in your every word. Like something painted over in a thin layer that does not cover," Boromir said.

"Why must you speak of such things now? Do the men of Gondor not learn respect for the dead? To speak of the evil which he bore for us, even over his body..."

There came suddenly a wet sound at the doorway, and Pippin stood in the gold light, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and staring out. Merry came to his side, touching his waist, and led him outside. They seemed to ignore the man and elf. Pippin wept without sound, and Merry kept his hand on his cousin's shoulder and made no movement at all. His face was blackly shadowed and lowered towards the ground. Sam came also, heavy-footed and puffy-faced, moaning under his breath and clenching his hands together.

Sam reached inside a pocket and pulled out a tiny wooden box, prettily carved into curling vines and flowers. Inside it, as only Sam knew, was salt from the Shire. His little piece of home. A home that would now seem desolate and empty, if e'er he returned. He pressed it under Frodo's still hands, and kissed them, and pressed their coldness to the hot of his tears.

"Oh Mr. Frodo..."

"We must bury him!" Merry suddenly cried, staring up at Boromir and Legolas. Legolas paced the ground and felt for solid earth. He began to dig, bent over, fingernails scraping up black dirt. Pippin and Merry joined him, and he left them to it, and began breaking off more branches of holly, finding the greenest of the waxy leaves, and fullest of their red berries. These he laid o'er Frodo's hands. Sam let out another pitiful round of tears. Legolas touched his hair and whispered a simple lullaby to him, and took his hands in his.

Sam sniffed and sucked his lip, and he unclipped Sting from Frodo's belt. "This will go back to M-Mr. Bilbo,"he said, and nodded to himself.

Merry and Pippin had finished the grave, and they stood, nearly swaying, by it. They found themselves in a crushing, wet, nightmare from which they could not wake up. Legolas carried Frodo to the gaping scar in the ground, and gently laid him down.

Pippin searched his clothes, and came out with a mushroom, its top as big as a man's fist. "I was going to eat this, but you can have it," he confessed to his still friend, and set it near the holly and salt. Merry scratched his dark hair and stamped with the bitter cold. He leaned over the hole, his face close to Frodo's.

"I have nothing to give you Frodo. Nor do I know what you could be in want of. But I do know, you were the best Bagginses I ever knew, and I ever will know. And I don't know what to do now that you're not here." He wiped his nose against his fist and moved away.

Aragorn stirred also from the mouth of Moria, and gave to Frodo a tied frond of athelas, and he crossed himself in a salute and bowed before the grave. Gimli took from his traveling pack a necklace of diamonds white and tiny as woodruff blooms, and they burned through the dark like stars. He laid it at Frodo's bruised throat. Gandalf gave to Frodo a tightly rolled scroll bound in red cord.

"A song, which Bilbo wrote and gave to me. He wrote it in a burst of great joy... the day he found out you had woken from your deadly sleep, in the houses of healing."

Boromir undid the broach holding his cloak, and pinned it to Frodo's shoulder, above the scar of the morgul blade. "Your deeds will be sung of for ages in the halls of Gondor," he pledged, and he turned his sharp eyes to Legolas, so that he felt as if he were being flayed with a knife.

"And there is yet one thing, which we must tend to, before he is given to the earth of this wretched place," Boromir pronounced, and his words were a little too quick. "The burden that Frodo wears, it must be passed on."

Aragorn gripped the hilt of his sword and stepped toward him. "It shall be passed on. But do not touch it, unless it be deemed _your_ burden."

Boromir drew away slowly. Gandalf held his face in his hands, and would not raise his head. Boromir's fingers twitched, and every muscle trembled with energy. The rain came down heavier, and in great misty curtains now. His torch guttered, and the orange light from the entrance to Moria grew dimmer through the heavy night.

In the distance a song broke out, and at first it sounded like the said wail of a woman, but it turned into several voices, and then ended in the howls of wolves. An equine scream cut through their song, and their came the greedy sounds of feasting. Sam gasped and rocked back and forth, clutching his hem.

The lingering night would give forth no new ring bearer, and so as opalescent light began to graduate into the sky, Boromir reached towards the ring; but found it being drawn from under his fingertips like water. Legolas clasped the silver chain around his throat. He clutched the warm ring in his fist, for he was gripped by a great fear when he witnessed the craving of Boromir,and could not see the ring taken into his hands.

Aragorn touched Legolas' hand, and lowered his gaze in submission. The hobbits' eyes filled like goblets with their fearful admiration. Gimli muttered into his beard. Boromir was livid, white in the face and his fury only made him more terrifying. He stood to full height and began to say something, to step towards Legolas and reach, but the sword of Aragorn stopped him with its flat side.

Gandalf had raised his head, and Legolas looked upon him. The old wizard nodded, and sank down into himself again.

"I will bear the ring," said Legolas.

He thought he could hear shrill rejoicing, and the beating of black wings in the sky above, as Pippin threw a handful of black soil over the face of Frodo Baggins.

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I do not own anything of Tolkien's, I only like to play with them. )


	2. Through Moria

I know that in reality, the floors of Moria were strewn with corpses from the very first hall, but... for the sake of this story, the 'entrance hall' is empty of bodies. Thank you.

**The Ringbearer**

**Deep Through Moria**

**Pt. I**

The Fellowship waded in their despair for a day and a night in the entrance hall of Moria. The smooth wall and floor became black with the soot from their fire; and the temperature at times was stifling, and drew sweat out on their faces and bodies, but they did not let it go out. They feared the misty dark beyond the door, with its hidden, lurking, things.

They spoke little during that time, and it was only of the most necessary things. If they needed privacy at their body's calling, two would always guard from the door, and their charge would not wander far.

They ate and drank little. They had enough provisions, but it turned to moldy dust in their mouths and choked. They slept naught at all or too much.

Legolas slept only once, for a brief moment, when against his eyes he beheld thick, high, grass, and he smelled its sweet green crushed under his boots. In the center of this green sea grew a towering oak. Sunlight glittered in its pale, shivering, leaves, and it was entirely without the bite of bugs or the spore of rot, from root to leaf-tip. He drifted towards the grandsire tree and heard a familiar laughter. Under the tree swirled a wisp of pleasing smoke, and light glowed on a curly head. Frodo smiled and laughed and smoked his pipe, and he stared Legolas in the eyes. And when this happened, the hobbit pulled off his shirt at the shoulder for him to see, and joy overfilled in his lambent eyes, for his flesh was without the Morgul mark.

Despite this dream of enigmatic good-will, Legolas found himself fearing every skitter of a pebble, every high flitting shadow and every breath of cold air. He feared the touch of the ring against his flesh, so with a scrap of cloth he sewed the ring and chain into the inside of his quiver. He could already feel the darkness about him, a smoky blackness touching the edge of his mind. He thought often of little Frodo, and pitied the hobbit for every moment he, too, had fought with the dark.

The second morning, Legolas could stand the stirring sense of urgency no longer. His feet burned to be fleeing, the ring a throbbing circle in his mind's eye. He felt light-headed; a deer pursued in a round room with no doors. Most of the Fellowship still dozed. It was a poisonous twilight hue outside, as it ever was. The holly trees cut black bolts through the air.

As Legolas rose, slow, to his feet, Samwise let out a muffled yell in his sleep. Legolas stepped quick between the sleeping bodies and went to him. Sam was curled into a ball and he trembled with his back to the company. Legolas stroked his shoulder and murmured to him, words like silver threaded through water.

"Samwise, dear one, wake. Wake now."

The hobbit startled awake and curled up tighter, making a pathetic sound into his rolled up cloak,

"Samwise," said Legolas.

Sam rolled over, and his eyes were swollen, watery, and bruised. Legolas sat near and embraced him.

"Dear, brave, Sam. What words can I say to you, about your courageous master?"

Sam choked and dug his blunt-tipped fingers into the elfin clothes.

"Do you know where your Mr. Frodo is now, my dear Sam?"

Sam sniffed thickly and shook his hanging head.

"I will tell you this, Samwise Gamgee. Through coincidence or through the hand of the Valar in hopes of soothing, or from the touch of Frodo himself, I have seen him in dreaming."

Sam jumped, sat up bolt straight and stared. "Truly, Mr. Legolas, sir?"

"Aye. He dwells in green fields, the like of which I have never seen, but have imagined existing in the far west, across the sea. Also, he finds shade and good comfort under a tree which has no greater, save again, in the west. Laughter and smiling seem common to him now, and he is without hurt on his body. He suffers not, and he worries not, and neither should you, Mr. Gamgee."

A well of fresh tears opened up o'er Sam's face, but a smile split his dirt-smeared mouth.

"Well, I must say," said Sam. "That sounds like good 'ol mister Frodo to me. If ever there was a heaven he desired for himself, it would be as such. Aw, but I'll still miss him here beside me, truly I will."

Legolas touched his hair and smiled. "Such is as must be. For we earthly creatures want gather everything to ourselves, and grieve mostly for the loss of something, not of the individual welfare of that thing.

Do not look so alarmed, Sam. Tis simply the natural nature of things, and we all feel the loss of Frodo as blades dug deep through our hearts, and you are not alone in your sadness."

Legolas left Sam, and a dark shifting of color caught his eyes, and Gandalf moved towards him, feeling out the rocky ground with his staff. Legolas was filled with unease, for in his wanderings and dwellings, many of which Gandalf had passed through like a myth, he'd never seen the wizard so bent and colorless. The wizard raised his head and took Legolas' arm in a trembling grasp.

"I feel, as I've always felt, the hobbits to be my family, my children under my care. None of the other wizards of my order pay them any heed, but they fascinated me and warmed my heart and I loved them each in their own way, even those due for a toss into the nearest lake. The loss of Frodo has hurt me almost as much as it hurts Sam." He took a deep breath, and glanced at the hobbit. "Thank you for comforting, when I could not yet do so." He took Legolas into a heavy embrace, filled with the smell of woody smoke and magic, and the rasping of his overlarge robe.

"Mithrandir, if you heard my words, they are for you also," said Legolas.

Soon the others began to stir, and blink, and wash their faces with splashes of water and wet their dry mouths. Legolas stepped up onto a raised boulder.

"It is time to move on," he said, and pierced their faces with his gaze.

The Fellowship murmured in assent, and began packing up their things and standing to stretch, but Boromir came towards Legolas on his rocky dais and seemed benign of expression, but held a deadly light in his eyes.

"Would you not think that with the wickedness that has already occurred here, indeed, even just at the _entrance_ to Moria, t'would be wise to heed my advice, and head for the gap of Rohan?"

Aragorn stopped placing things in his pack and slipped towards them. His palm was at the pommel of his sword. Gandalf crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat. Boromir's gaze flickered over them without concern.

Legolas found himself yearning to clench the ring in his hands, and reached for it, before remembering its new place. "I would honor the memory of Frodo, by following the path which he has laid out before us."

"And you truly think this path is wise? The path which destroyed him?" asked Boromir quietly.

Wrath grew in Legolas' face. "How infant your argument, to twist words and meanings when you know their truth. I hold the ring. We will go through Moria."

"Foolishness!" cried Boromir, and beat his chest. "This is madness and foolishness. You care not at all for the quest! You can't possibly, to mean to lead us on."

"Boromir!" Aragorn said, coming to his side. He let go of his sword and held his hands palm up. Calm came to his voice, and compassion to his eyes. He touched Boromir's shoulder. "Please, Boromir. Legolas, just as Frodo, would never lead us intentionally into harm. You know this. Aye, you are right with your fear, seeing from our trouble this far. But for all we know the rest of the path may be smooth.

What is most important is time. Doubling back from here to head towards Rohan may be just as dangerous, if not more, of braving the mines. We must push on, it is all we can do."

"He speaks true," Legolas said.

"Indeed he does," added Gandalf. "Be at peace, son of Gondor. We do not forget your wishes. Our wish in turn is that you _will_ see your land soon; through the mines will be the swiftest way."

Boromir kicked a stone and grimaced, but left them alone.

Legolas came down from his boulder to speak with Aragorn.

"A shadow is heavy upon him, Estel," he said.

"Yes. I have seen this as well. I think it is a shadow that may come upon many of us in time. It is the shadow of the enemy, who wants to gain the ring through the temptation of the Fellowship. We must simply watch, and hope that he overcomes his test."

Gandalf turned his attention to them. "I will watch keenly, for I too, see this shadow. Perhaps clearer than all of you. If the worst comes for him, I will do what I can in my power."

They all took torches from the fire, and Gimli volunteered to haul a bundle of extra wood, should the flame need to be passed on. Aragorn scattered the flames and ashes, and they walked to the far end of the cavern, where passages opened up in the walls; gaping, foul, mouths. Beyond them stone stairs like broken teeth ran up, down, to the left and right. The torches roared and the flames blew backwards.

"Do your recognize these passages? Aragorn? Gandalf?" Legolas asked.

Aragorn shook his head. "Though I have journeyed through here, it has been a long time since, and I fear I will remember little, especially in this darkness."

"I will lead," Gandalf said. "As far as I can." He shuffled forward into a bleak and echoing stairway.

Legolas fell into stride with Gimli at his side. The dwarf was bursting with throaty gasps of pleasure, and his careful fingers ever stroked the carved stone. Sometimes he would retrieve pieces of rock from the floor, seem to find them mightily significant, and pack them away. Legolas felt a little better about the closed abyss of the mine, seeing one who feared it not at all, but treated it reverently, like an ancient relic. Sometimes Gimli would tell him tales about the rooms through which they passed, or about the type of stone or the dwarves who built it.

"I always knew dwarves made homes in the stone, but I never dreamed of the extent to which they love their mountains."

The dwarf seemed a little irritated. "Of course! Our homes are not simply just 'stone.' They are rock! Rock!"

Aragorn chuckled softly. Gimli went on, with adoration on his face. "Each rock is different. Different appearance, feel, sound... Different to their very breath! Each must be touched and carved a different way. They are tender as newborn deer, they are!" Legolas found himself smiling without control, contemplating such an image.

Even in his marvel, Gimli, in his heart, was troubled. His relative Balin dwelt here in splender, the last time he had come. Where was he now? Where were the lanterns and candles? The smells of roasting meat and yellow ale? The laughter and familir throaty tongue of other dwarves? It was possible that as danger grew and perhaps, population lessened, they had retreated further into the bowels of Moria. But still a deep blade of dread grew in Gimli's chest.

Their route brought them many times to flights of stairs that seemed to run straight up or straight down. Many times, Boromir, Aragorn, and Legolas carried the hobbits on their backs. Pebbles slid and crackled always under their feet and made them slip. At the archway to each new room, many would look up hopefully, looking for a shaft of light through the dark, a beacon through a stifling night. They stopped two hours from beginning, for the stairs were treacherous and tiring, and breath was a little harder to come by so deep within the earth.

Merry and Pippin wrapped each other up in their cloaks, holding hands tightly, and dozed. Sorrow still hung on them like iron manacles, and also had come a fear. Here, so far away from green rolling lands and cool, clean, waters, they faced death at every footstep and every shadow.


	3. Through Moria Pt II

Note: I realize my depiction of some of the rooms and passages are different both from book and movie, but as the journey took 4 days, and not all of which was fully recorded, I may well be right, yes? Ha...yeah. There can be a lot of rooms an crap in 4 days.

Reviewers:

GoldQuartz- My first reviewer, thanks a lot! I'm sorry I killed Frodo, I'm such a naughty person. But I hope you found his noble death worthy of the furthering of the story. )

Bourgeois Sounds Swell- Ha! I'm glad then, that you may finally see Legolas 'do' something. Although let's not forget! He DID kill that oliphant single-handedly, even though it did only count as 'one.' xD Thanks for the review, and I hope you keep reading!

XxA7XLoverxX- Wow, I'm so flattered! And my head-so large! _Great_ one, am I? Teehee. Heh, anyway! I'm relieved that you think such, about me capturing the characters correctly. That's always something that makes or breaks a story, in my opinion, so it's good to hear that I did ok! Hope to read more of your reviews later! hint hint )

**The Ringbearer**

**Deep Through Moria**

**Pt. II**

Noontime on the Fellowship's first day of Moria brought them a macabre surprise. They stopped at a tiny chamber from which sprung three more ways, a sight already common to them. But as they scrambled through the fallen rock and broken stairs into the room, they found themselves choking and sucking desperately for breath. The air hung heavy with must and mold and something else, a sickly, horrible, scent that invaded every pore and turned the hair on their necks to needles.

"Auck! What could create such a horrible stench!" Gimli gasped. "Perhaps one of the miners tapped a underground spring that was not quite at its freshest. I bet it was ol' Qualir; he had never the hand for a pickaxe, nor the mind."

Gimli strode forward towards the center archway, but Gandalf stopped him with an outstretched arm.

"Gimli... I'm afraid there are very bad tidings." The wizard swallowed, stooped, and stretched his staff forward into the mouth of the passage, bringing things to light. At first Gimli spied piles of ancient rubbish swathed in cobwebs, but the silvery glints of helms and speartips caught his eye. He went forward carefully, and saw, bleached star-white from Gandalf's light the skeletons of dwarves tumbled and still in the grasp of their armor. They littered the whole passage, as far as he could see; a landfill of corpses.

"A battlefield..." Gimli choked. He fell to his knees, and tears welled in his small, brown, eyes.

"A tomb," amended Boromir, as he and Aragorn stepped forward, wading among the remains, and lowering their torches to study the wasted faces, caught in masks of agony. Old blood looked like rust on their armor and on the floor and walls. Panic threaded through the Fellowship. The hobbits huddled together and breathed quickly, huge eyes not leaving the stagnant passageway.

Legolas noticed them and came, touching each of their heads in turn. "Calm yourselves. This is old death, see the cobwebs? Mayhap even their _ghosts_ do not linger here any longer."

It was the same in each of the three passages; they would have to tread through the fallen dwarves by whichever course.

Gimli lingered at the mouths of the passages, bent almost in half with grief as he searched forlornly the faces and armor and weapons, wondering if here lie the faces he once knew.

"We must go on..." Legolas reminded softly, and shepherded the hobbits forward.

Boromir glared at the walls of Moria with eyes that could cut steel, and shook his head in brooding disbelief. _The death of the Ringbearer at our backs, a city of strewn corpses afore. What madness does the ring indeed bring to the minds around it? _He wondered.

Gandalf took them forward through the middle passage, and they did not make sound save Gimli, who wept in gravelly tones, chin against his chained chest. This passage went on for a mile, and then opened up into a larger space, and before they'd realized it the ground sloped away on each side of them, and under foot the ground turned to stairs and led upwards to a dark landing, where another door welcomed them blackly. Aragorn and Boromir took the lead. The corpses cluttered the stairs, and could not be thrown off in fear of waking the sleeping dangers. Each foot had to be placed surely between one body and another, among this spearhead and that pile of mail.

When Legolas stepped onto the jutting landing there came a sound from above him, a tap of rock against rock. He knocked his arrow and aimed it towards the empty air above. He scoured the ceiling and the walls, each tiny dent and hole, his elfin gaze penetrating each and finding only bugs or mice, deep within the earth. The sound came again, along with a soft, wet, rasp like of breath. This time it sounded from elsewhere, to his left and more level. He spun and loosed his arrow from where the sound had come, and knocked a second.

Aragorn touched his shoulder warily, eying the gleaming flint arrowhead.

"What do you hear?" He asked calmly, though his hand was flexing around his hilt.

"A creature, and surely not an innocent one. These caves echo so that the skitter of a pebble can come from empty air, and a trickle of water from under your feet. I cannot tell where this creature lay."

"It is Gollum," said Gandalf. He beckoned them both to the landing door. "Come now, let us rest a bit and eat, and tackle this big, brutish, mountain at a later time."

Sam built a tiny, contained fire and cooked for them a batch of potatos and carrots. With it they ate dried and spiced meats, and unattractive clumps of cheese. None the less the food filled the hollowness of their bellies and gave them, for a while, some warmth. The hobbits and Gimli, with urging and consoling from Aragorn, napped fitfully. Gandalf stationed himself at the end of the tiny chamber, perched on a tumbled column as he observed a fresco of faded paintings dancing along the walls. The wizard stroked his beard and smoked without savoring, his watery blue eyes squinted. Legolas settled next to him.

"So... Gollum has found his way back to the watch of Mirkwood. I assume he must have been tracking us for a great while, then. His advanced age has given him a great craftiness, if he can follow us without my ears betraying him."

Gandalf nodded without speaking. Legolas looked at him from the corner of his eyes. Questions pressed at his teeth, but he was wary of the wizard's quick temper, and did not want to disturb his deep thought.

Before he had to keep deliberating, however, Gandalf turned his head and nodded, raising a tangled, bushy, eyebrow in encouragement.

" What danger will he bring us, think you?" Legolas whispered.

Gandalf closed his eyes and breathed deep from his long-stemmed pipe. He drew up his bony knee and set his arm across it, the pipe hanging from his fingers, smoldering. "It would seem obvious to any man or elf that Gollum can only bring us danger and destruction, yet there is a stirring in my heart, a shadowy voice from realms away that says otherwise. That Gollum may have yet some part to play, and that it could be for an ultimate end that is good."

He took another pull from his pipe and the smoke eddied around his beard. A translucent doubt had fallen across his face. Legolas pulled at his sleeve.

"What is it, Gandalf? You make speak freely to me." His voice sounded concerned, almost desperate. With the burden of the ring over his head, he found himself nearly terrified of being withheld information concerning it.

"This voice..." he murmured. "Now that I bring myself to think of it, I have not heard such a voice, nor again felt such an internal warning concerning Gollum. Not since Frodo... not _since_ have I felt this aversion to the harm of the one who was Smeagol. In fact, more than one whispering of the soul has changed or vanished, since Frodo passed from this realm."

The wizard and the elf searched each other's eyes gravely, each excavating for the answers of the questions in their heart.

Gandalf broke away and stood up, joints squeaking, and ate gratefully the vegetables that Sam offered him. When their hurried rest and sup was ended, wistful memories of green grass and blue sky would not let them tarry longer.

The chamber opened onto yet another towering passage, shaped slim like a parting between two stone curtains, revealing its tongue of serpentine stairs. They clambered this upwards for a good distance and then curved sharply and steeply downwards. Here on the narrow steps, they could not help the pebbles and chinks of broken chain mail that shifted under their feet and tumbled down the flight ahead of them like hail. They froze after each such rain of hissing,clinking, noise, listening until the pounding of their own blood in their ears seemed painful. The stairs eventually stopped at a series of rickety catwalks, in an area that had been under heavy construction. The catwalks spanned the diameter of a huge hollow column in the eart; they could not see ceiling or floor, save Legolas, and he did not have the heart to tell them how far away they hung and lay. The wood creaked and shuddered, and when it did it let out rains of dust and splinters. Sam and Merry could barely be coaxed along the sickeningly swaying platforms, and inched their way little by little through, arms fastened around the handrails. Legolas stepped ahead of the company nimbly, testing the planks with his toes, stroking the rope to feel for frays and thinning. They made it without incident, though they went slowly.

At the last catwalk they climbed a ladder to a roughly constructed arch and passed through. By that time the sky outside would be flooding with the color of crushed violet, and stars would begin to pierce through the lemon-rosy horizon. _Inside_ it was night as it had ever been.

They marched on for another hour, and then stopped. Under better circumstances they may have gone on longer, but disconsolation mingled with fear, and drained them. They stopped in what looked to have been a kitchen or storeroom. None of them wished to investigate its shadowy, spider webbed shelves however, for whatever might be left could only feed the mouths of the skeletons they had piled in one corner. Bugs were rampant in that room, millipedes as long as Pippin's forearm and spiders bigger than his hand; leaders of an army of others, scuttling along the walls and through the dead dwarf's eye sockets and through the Fellowship's hair and clothes.

Pippin yelped and batted at his sleeve as something prickly marched below his sleeve. Tears of fear and frustration glittered in the hobbit's eyes. "Is there no _other_ place to stay, Legolas? Gandalf?"

Legolas drew himself up tall and peered down at the struggling one, biting his lip from the inside so none could see. He could not help feel a bitter hint of personal failure, even from such a small remark. But Gandalf touched the elf's back and shook his head at Pippin.

"I'm truly sorry, my dear hobbit. It looks as if this is the first grotto in a line of ones similar. I don't know how long we'd have to go one to find better shelter. You'd like a sufficient rest, now, wouldn't you?"

Pippin wrapped his arms around himself and glanced at a pair of shiny, green-backed beetles as they vanished in a crack. Then he leaned his head against Merry's shoulder and decided he was tired more than afraid, and nodded pitifully at Gandalf.

They ate again, lighter this time, for they did not want to encourage their skittering company, nor did the insects inspire great appetites. They did not build a fire.

"I will take first watch," Gandalf announced.

"And I will take second!" Boromir volunteered immediatly.

They all settled down to rest, save Legolas who reposed on a crooked stool in the corner, watching over the Fellowship like a guardian angel. He was utterly still, and he seemed to draw the muted light from Gandalf's staff around him like a cloak, until even the tips of his pale hair glowed with celestially cerulean light. Gandalf fixed him with a keen eye, and the illusion died.

"You may as well get your rest now, Ringbearer. Elf though you may be, you never know when the chance to sleep will come again in this accursed land."

"I find myself fearful to sleep," admitted Legolas, and he fingered the bow across his knees. "But not just for the sake of orcs and goblins, but for the sake of dreams, and the strange magic of the enemy that I do not completely understand, and therefore can not risk to underestimate." He paused, seeming to consider carefully, and in a quieter voice said: "I have heard stories of him launching attacks through dreams, and through the mind, even though he is not face to face with you."

Gandalf nodded in understanding. "You consider your situation well, and I too share your thoughts. However, I highly doubt the Eye will reach you here. Even so, you are surrounded by those that would protect you from it. We are in danger of orcs and goblins, yes, but the Eye must wait until we are no longer in the heart of a great mountain, whose skin even _He_ shall find hard to penetrate."

Legolas came down from his seat and found a place to rest, near Aragorn, with whom he founds himself always most comforted. He folded his pale hands over his breast, and slept with half-open eyes cast down.


	4. Through Moria Pt III

Sorry for those of you following this! I was on vacation for a few days. ... And also sorry that my chapters seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Ha. I suck.

GoldQuartz- Thanks so much for reviewing again! I heart you!

**The Ringbearer**

**Deep Through Moria**

**Pt. III**

The crackle of boots against beetles roused Legolas at once. He woke furtively, eyes growing sharp and bright, under still, pale, eyelashes. He was tranquil and open to sound, waiting as a spider for the fly.

Suddenly he rolled to his side, snatched up an arrow, and barely had it before his face in time to knock Boromir's sword off balance. Electric blue sparks showered the elf's chest. Boromir pressed his strike so the broad of his blade was locked tight with the arrow shaft. They held for a moment, both men and elf trembling, and the smooth wood creaked and seemed to explode, and the sword drove the breath from Legolas' chest. He exhaled a ragged scrap of air and Boromir's hands clamped around his throat, drove his knees into his legs and pinned him hard against the dust and bugs.

"You shall not give up the ring nor change course, so on behalf of my people I must challenge you for it!" Boromir proclaimed.

Tearfully, Legolas gained a solid grip on the man's fists and began slowly to pry them apart. Blackness sweltered at the edge of his vision.

"If this is a fair duel in the eyes of a man of Gondor, I find my mind growing ever more set to not venture to the city," he said, and threw the warrior from his body.

Boromir gained his feet quickly and seized his sword, and came at the elf again. Legolas had found himself foolishly going after his quiver, and not even for an arrow, but from an overwhelming panic that beat against his ribcage. The ring. He needed the ring!

Boromir grabbed his clothes from behind and swung him sideways and against the shelves. One of them cracked and broke and sent up a cloud of dust and skittering things.

Some of the sleeping Fellowship began to rouse, and Aragorn and Gandalf let out shouts. The dust mounted higher and further and unfurled through the air like smoke. Legolas had lost the arrow he'd had and found himself tearing blindly with his nails, aiming haphazard punches and kicks. Boromir seemed at once all over him, ripping his clothes and searching for the ring. Legolas cried out and landed a fierce blow against his ear. He growled and held his hand to his head, and a thin liquid trickled from under his fingers.

"Foolish!" He howled, and held the elf at the throat again, a grip so tight that something cracked wetly under his palm. Legolas choked, and as he curled his long fingers around the man's wrists, Boromir had him by the hair and dashed his head hard against the shelves.

"Boromir..." Legolas pleaded.

All at once, hopelessness opened on him like a dragon's swallowing mouth. Beating, hot, darkness. His mind left him in a dozen flitting surges, desperate for help, but the rock trapped him and frightenend him, and he sensed no friendly power here. No green things, no water, nothing touched by elves and nothing friend to elves. He was alone, and in the eye of this dragon of despair burned a simple ring.

Legolas' fingers twitched dumbly. The ring. He yearned for the feel of it heavy on his finger. He hungered for it so deeply he could almost taste power on his tongue.

As instantly as he felt all this it was gone, and he was on his knees choking with a raw throat. Aragorn was around him, with the green-blue smell of mountains and the coolness of a river in his eyes. He touched his shoulder and his ripped clothes and held him gently so he would not fall.

The dust hed begun to clear. The hobbits huddled in the corner, swaying from foot to foot with their knives in their trembling hands, wondering what to do. Boromir was bound and gagged in one corner, and Gandalf stood over him like a graveyard tree, back bent with remorse. Gimli shook his head and muttered, his eyes sorrowful, for he had come to like the man for the passion he had for his people.

"What just happened? Why all the dust and the shoutin' and the...the ruckus?" Pippin swallowed and asked.

Aragorn sighed heavily and said nothing as he helped Legolas to stand. He looked the ringbearer up and down carefully, and felt along his legs, ribs, and arms.

"Have you any pain, Legolas?"

Legolas reached with trembling fingers and touched the back of his head. He moaned low in his raw throat, for his hair was warm and sticky. He blinked tearfully in the dust, and squinted at the darkness on his fingertips. His vision kept shuddering into double images, and clearing again, like the plucking of a harp string.

Aragorn gently sat him down, holding his head against his shoulder, and bid Gimli bring him his pack. He pressed a motley rag against the seeping wound, and, fearing the time it would take to ready water, chewed two leaves of athelas and pressed them to the gash. Legolas pulled at Aragorn's sleeve, but did not cry out. In moments, the athelas threaded through his veins and he breathed easier.

Gimli came forward and offered the elf water. Legolas' throat felt at once swollen and dry, and he thanked the dwarf in relief, and took careful sips.

Finally, Legolas brought himself to look at Boromir. The man was still seething. The swell and depression of his heaving chest made the ropes squeak with strain. His eyes were wild under sweat-dampened hair.

Aragorn turned the elf away, and spoke close to his ear. "It is our fault. The Ring tested him, and we were not wary enough. We were lucky to catch him just in time."

He stopped, but his lips moved without sound, as if he wanted to say something else.

Legolas pressed his hand. "Tell me."

"I hesitate only because I know you need no reminding. But it is not entirely his fault. Forgive him, for my sake at least, because we are both fallible men." He grinned a little, but the concern did not drain from his eyes.

Legolas nodded. "I will speak to him when his madness has passed, and when my voice sounds less like Gollum's."

Gimli elbowed them aside to be privy of their talk. "Here now, let's not keep secrets from one another. What madness has overtaken fair Boromir?"

"Of course, it is the lure of the ring, Gimli," answered Aragorn. "With hope it will pass, but be wary... none of us are above its temptation, and we cannot know where the eye will seek next."

Gandalf soothed the hobbit's fear and worry, and coaxed them to bed for a few more hours. Aragorn sat near Boromir in the corner, at first simply watching him, and then speaking, in dulcet tones as one would a wild animal.

Legolas perched up on his rock seat and shivered a little. His quiver he'd moved across the room, as far away from his own grasp as possible. Even when the attack of Boromir had ceased, the incessant hunger of that golden touch had not left his mind. It ate him up like flies on dead flesh. It invaded his mind, where lived the memory of clear, star-spangled skies and sproutlings along rivers, and filled it with a blackness that ate up these memories and left death and fire behind.

He ran his fingers through his tangled hair and despaired for a moment that he may go mad. His temples felt tight and hot, a drum skin that had been pulled far too taut. Even through the pain-blurring athelas, he ached with every pulse.

Gimli put a strong hand on his knee.

"Don't ye worry a moment more, elf. It's high my turn to take on the watch, and I'll protect ye from anythin' evil around this sorry excuse for a pantry." He brandished his axe and paced a few steps. Legolas couldn't help but laugh.

"My thanks master dwarf, but I think I shall find it difficult to sleep now, not that I need any more. Please, rest yourself, and let me do the watching."

"And I will watch as well," Aragorn said, and gave the dwarf a confident smile. "You'd better rest, so that your eyes may be their sharpest tomorrow. You would not want to miss a significant piece of rock at your feet, or a memorable notch on a wall, would you?"

Gimli looked about to protest, but then growled warmly and dropped his axe to his side. Sleep sounded passing fair at that time, whether for the benefit of his eyes or not, and he would not argue against it.

Gandalf came to Legolas and whispered silent apologies and words of concern, and took a seat near Boromir. The wizard announced he would be stealing as many minutes of sleep as the vagabond would allow, but Legolas doubted he would allow even an eyelid to slump.

Legolas and Aragorn sat alone on a pile of gravel at the head of the Fellowship. For a long time they watched the yellow, acrid, dust settle and said nothing. Then,

"Where is the ring?"

Legolas stirred, tremored a little. "It is in a hidden place."

He wanted to turn then, to search the eyes of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, to see the roots from whence his simple question came. To judge them good or evil. But with Boromir quivering in the corner, he could not do it.

Through the night, echoing hazily through Moria like sound under deep water, Legolas listened to the sonorous shudder of unknown breath, and the gurgle of its delighted laughter.


End file.
